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Writer's pictureLynn Ferguson-Pinet

How can I connect better with my boss – I’m all about the action and my boss is…


This is the fourth and final installment in a series focused on improving your relationship with your boss, this post will focus on the action oriented personality. As previously stated the best way to improve your connection with your boss is to reflect on your own personality style and then determine where the connection points and challenges are.

If you resonate with the title, you likely fit into the action oriented personality style. Next step is to try to determine your boss’s personality style. Check out the Workplace Personality Styles link on the left sidebar menu for an overview. Now that you have both yourself and your boss categorized, here are some key points to improve your communication and overall relationship with your boss:


Action Oriented to Structure Oriented Boss

  • Your key connection point is the fact that you both like to hands on get work completed, your motivation however is quite different. For yourself, as an action oriented personality you love to get things finished so you can move on to the next challenge. Your boss on the other hand is more focused on making sure its really finished, crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all the “i’s”. Focus on the common ground of accomplishments and make sure you give projects a thorough review to ensure you fully complete before declaring victory.

  • The key challenge for you when working with your boss, is you like to focus on the here and now and what can be. Your boss is more likely to view previous experience and historical patterns to predict future outcomes.

Action Oriented to People Oriented Boss

  • Your key connection point is that intuition is important in making decisions. Not that facts don’t count but both of you see the world in grey scale and open to the possibilities of what could be.

  • The key challenge for you when working with your boss as an action oriented person is about striving forward or striving forward as a group. Your boss is more likely to want the group to reach consensus or at least ensure everyone has been heard before moving forward. Don’t misunderstand this preference for input with their ability to make decisions or be decisive.

Action Oriented to Logic Oriented Boss

  • Your key connection point is you both prefer and appreciate direct concise communication. You don’t want things sugar coated, you just want to hear it the way it is and your boss shares this preference.

  • The key challenge for you when working with your boss is you love to stop talking about it and just do it. Your boss prefers to evaluate lots of options to ensure you are taking the “best” route. They constantly ask questions to clarify. You are also extremely comfortable brainstorming and building on an idea together, however your boss prefers to process information internally first before expressing an opinion.

Your relationship with your boss is much more complex than the key points listed above, however having an appreciation for some polarizing preferences can go a long way to improving the relationship. Once you actually start having the discussion about different preferences you can work out how to best appreciate and capitalize on the differences, rather than getting stuck in not understanding each other.

Lynn

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